Since
then the winds have never been so terrible as in the old time. The
reader will find the main incident of this story repeated in
"Tumilkoontaoo, the Broken Wing," from the Micmac, in which there is no
mention of Glooskap. This of _Wuchowsen_ is from the Passamaquoddy
manuscript collection by Louis Mitchell. It is unquestionably the
original. Glooskap, as the greatest magician, most appropriately
subdues the giant eagle of the North, the terrible god of the storm.
No one who knows the Edda will deny that Wuchowsen, or the Wind-blower,
as he appears in the Passamaquoddy tale, is far more like the same bird
of the Norsemen than the grotesque Thunder Bird of the Western tribes.
He is distinctly spoken of by the Indians of Maine as a giant and a
bird in one, sitting on a high cliff at the end of the sky, the wind--not
thunder--coming from his pinions:--
"Tell me ninthly,
Since thou art called wise,
Whence the wind comes,
That over ocean passes,
Itself invisible to man.
"Hraesvelg he is called
Who at the end of heaven sits,
A Jotun (giant) in eagle's plumage:
From his wings comes,
It is said, the wind.
That over all men passes."
(The Lay of Vafthrudnir. The Edda, trans. by B. Thorpe.)
_How Glooskcap conquered the Great Bull-Frog, and in what Manner all
the Pollywogs, Crabs, Leeches, and other Water Creatures were
created.
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